Newtown massacre-inspired game sparks outcry

Updated 12:14 am, Wednesday, November 20, 2013

The perpetrator of the worst grade-school shooting in U.S. history is getting posthumous, and, many say, unwarranted recognition from the very source of his blood lust -- a video game.

To the shock of the families of the 26 victims -- 20 of whom were first-graders -- gamers can re-enact Adam Lanza's rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in a controversial new online game.

"The Slaying of Sandy Hook Elementary" directs gamers to storm virtual classrooms with an AR-15 assault rifle in the same vein as Lanza and displays a kill ratio at the end. The game's release comes less than a month before the first anniversary of the Dec. 14 massacre.

Donna Soto, of Stratford, whose 27-year-old daughter, Victoria, was a teacher at the school and died shielding her students from the gunfire, condemned the game.

"It's absolutely disgusting that somebody thinks this is funny," Soto told Hearst Connecticut Newspapers Tuesday. "All the families are suffering. We're coming up on December. My daughter's birthday just passed. It just adds insult to the suffering that we're dealing with."

"I'm just horrified," Llodra said. "I just don't understand, frankly, why anyone would think that the horrible tragedy that took place here in Sandy Hook would have any entertainment value. It just breaks my heart."

A person identifying himself as Ryan Jake Lambourn took credit for developing the role-playing game on its menu page, as well as another simulation inspired by the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre.

In an audio recording on the site, Lambourn describes himself as a U.S. expatriate from Houston who resides in Australia. There, he said, gun laws enacted after the fatal shooting of 35 people at a popular tourist destination in 1996 have stemmed the tide of violence.

"Here we are a year after the Sandy Hook shootings in which 26 people were killed, 20 of which were first-graders, and absolutely nothing positive has come out of it," Lambourn said in the recording. "I'm someone who rarely follows the news, so these updates have been a constant reminder of just how commonplace mass shootings and school shootings have become."

A request for comment was sent by Hearst to the Twitter account of Lambourn.

The credits section of the game redirects visitors to the websites of the National Rifle Association and members of Congress. In contrast to the state and federal debate over gun control, the NRA and lawmakers from Connecticut were in alignment over the controversial game.

The NRA called the simulation "reprehensible," but was reluctant to comment further, saying it didn't want to give more ink to "this despicable excuse for a human being."

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., slammed the developer of the game, which has parallels to a role-playing game modeled after the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado that was also widely panned.

"I find the exploitation of this unspeakable tragedy is just shocking," Blumenthal told Hearst. "From what I've heard and what's been shown to me, it's absolutely abhorrent. My hope is that it will be voluntarily taken down because it's offensive and hurtful."

As of Tuesday night, three separate websites were hosting the game. A fourth removed it earlier in the day.

"The only positive that can possibly come from this is if the repulsive reactions that it causes serve as common ground for extreme gun-rights people to instead of pointing out how something so vile is protected under the Constitution, or looking the other way, they join the masses in condemning it," said Dave Ackert, a spokesman for the Newtown Action Alliance, a local grassroots organization supportive of gun control reform. "Same goes for the NRA leadership, all of their A-rated lawmakers, executives and board members at gun manufacturers, gaming and other entertainment companies."

The game opens by directing players to grab a Glock handgun and follows with a prompt to "shoot your mother," just as the video game-obsessed Lanza did four times to his mother, Nancy Lanza, while she was sleeping.

Gamers are then prompted to grab a set of car keys and a cache of weapons from the family's home, where investigators found a trove of violent video games such as "Call of Duty."

Next, they are transported to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a lone gunman shatters the glass of the front doors and enters the hall. With the push of a keyboard button, gamers can kick down classroom doors.

In one classroom, a dialogue box with the words "pleads for compassion" pops up when a teacher is confronted by the gunman. Another dialogue box with the words "screams of terror" pops up in the hallway.

"Sickening. To make a game about the murder of 20 children and their six teachers is absolutely sickening," U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said in a statement. "I hope the very disturbed person who could think of something like this sees the cruelty of what he's done and stops it."

The game closes with an alert that police have arrived, with the shooter turning a gun on himself.

"It's just incomprehensible that someone would think this kind of thing is wanted," Soto said.